Coffee bean

No, this post is not about The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf!

I was grinding coffee on the dining table after dinner last night and as usual, the two girls wanted to help aka kaypoh.  When Yiu Yiu almost spilled the container containing the ground coffee, I shooed them away and they retreated to the living room.  Not long after, Yan Yan started crying, and mumbled about something stuck in her nose.  By the time I managed to find the torchlight, she had quietened down so I was hoping that it was just a false alarm.  When I shone the torchlight into her nostrils, to my horror, I spotted a coffee bean in her right nostril.  Apparently Yiu Yiu snitched one to play and passed it to her mei-mei when she asked for it, and the little monster decided to shove it up her nose!!!

Luckily she was not in pain nor seemed to be distressed but when she heard that we would be taking her to the doctor, she was hysterical.  I offered to let her sit on my lap all the way to the hospital to calm her down.

On arrival, the nurse attended to us but she clung to me and refused to be checked.  The nurse managed to persuade her to let her (the nurse) peek into her nostril by bribing her with a sticker.  The nurse said they would probably need to restrain her when removing the coffee bean later so I was mentally bracing myself for the worst.  We were then told to wait for the doctor who was attending to another patient.  I tried to prepare her while waiting for our turn – I explained that the bean needs to be removed, otherwise a tree would grow out of her nose J  I told her I’ll be with her, and that there’s nothing to be afraid of. 

She was pretty composed while we waited but started panicking when we went into the treatment room.  The nurse had lain the restraining straps on the bed, and covered it up with a piece of cloth but she refused to lie down so we had no choice but to force her down and bundled her up, much like being swaddled like a newborn.  

 This was the closest picture I could find to illustrate how she was restrained during the procedure.

She must have been terribly terrified L  She was screaming her lungs outs while I tried to calm her down for the doctor to be able to “hook” the bean out from her nose.  At some points, she stopped struggling and quitened down, probably because she didn’t feel any pain when the metal apparatus was inserted into her nose, before fear gripped her and she started struggling and screaming again.  The whole ordeal lasted probably 2-3 minutes, before the bean was successfully dislodged from her nostril and she was freed from the restrainer.  Thereafter, she hung on tight to me like a koala bear, until we rewarded her with 100 Plus, which she requested earlier while we waited for our turn.  She was back to her usual cheeky self not long after.  And said to me, “Mummy, tomorrow (she uses tomorrow to describe the future) I don’t want to put anything in my nose already.”  I'm just so glad it didn’t lead to anything serious, and she’s learned her lesson.

The offending bean

S.E.V.E.N

I promised Yiu Yiu a trip to Kidzania as her birthday present but as I had a meeting scheduled on Thursday morning and report card day in the afternoon, we went there on Friday with her cousin, Yihao.

When we got there, we found out that tickets were sold out for the day!  I don’t know who was more disappointed, the children or myself!  Apparently they had 19 school trips that day, so there were already like 1700 kids inside.  I was initially cursing myself for not purchasing the tickets online but on hindsight, it was a blessing in disguise, coz if I had, the children would not enjoy themselves as much, as they would probably spend much more time queueing than actually role-playing.

Since we were already out, and not wanting to send them back to school, we went to Kid’s e-World at IPC.  We spent the whole day there, stopping only for a quick late lunch.  Thank goodness they had free wifi inside, with very strong signal, so while the kids played, I downloaded apps into my new Samsung phone J

Expending some of her energy on the trampoline

Preparing to wage war with Yihao

We celebrated with my side of the clan, the babysitter and her sisters on Saturday at Ah Tuan Ee, SS2, with discount coupons that I bought.

Gulai tumis, sambal petai prawn, joo hoo char, inchi kabin, tau-u-kay, stir fried mixed vegetables

Birthday girl and mummy

She looked so intense when making her birthday wish :-)

I ordered the yummylicious durian mousse cake from M&M Café again – and it is still as good as we remembered it, with lots of durian flesh between the spongy cake.

And so these simple events marked seven years of joy that our first born brought to the family. 

 One for the family

Report card day

Yiu Yiu turned seven on Thursday, and it happened to be her report card day as well J  So how did it go…not very well, both results and celebration wise!  Will talk about her birthday celebration in another post.

I already expected her position to drop drastically, as she did really badly on both her BM Penulisan and Pemahaman and so I was neither shocked nor disappointed when I got her report card. 

I missed the first term report card day as I was travelling so this time, I got a chance to ask her class teacher more questions.  Apparently this girl L.O.V.E.S to talk and is constantly reprimanded for talking in class!  The teacher also commented that she doesn’t show remorse even when reprimanded.  Aiyo!  She also tends to have a mind of her own, and will sometimes defy the teacher’s orders (e.g. she will start scribbling and writing down the answers even though the teacher asked the class to put down their pencils and pay attention to the lesson first).  Double aiyo!  Nonetheless the teacher commented that she’s smart and a quick thinker.

So the onus is now on me to help her improve her BM.  Will need to scour the book stores to find suitable BM story books and exercise books for her to read and practice during the school holidays.  Now on the talking bit, how can I get her to stop talking in class?  Any suggestion, anyone?